An Open Letter To Silent Hill

Look, I get it. The stakes are higher this generation - you don’t want to be left in the dust, and changing directions is important to innovation. But you’re all over the place lately; I feel like a series that used to make my heart race with every footstep into the unknown fog is losing its grip on me.

You tried to keep up with other action games in Homecoming, but the shift took away part of what the series fun: the everyman protagonist. I loved the characters’ shaky aim and the fact that running was often the superior option to fighting. I mean, if I was in that position, that’s what I’d do, and that’s part of what makes survival horror fun: transporting yourself to the situation and trying to see if you could actually survive.

Then you released Shattered Memories and took all the combat out – which in turn eliminated part of the suspense. Plus, those Wii controls, especially while trying to get through those doors, provided frustration instead of the frenzy you were trying to create. Although, I do give you props for the psychological analysis that took place throughout the game, it was creative and put a fun twist on player choice. Please bring more innovations like that into new games.

Silent Hill: Downpour was probably the closest the series came to its roots, but once again certain aspects fell flat – like recycled enemies. Part of what makes the series tick is its unique foes that are often symbolic of the bigger picture. And once again poor controls took their ugly course, along with a lack of jump-scares and the lack of general terror compared to other entries. I’m begging you, bring back the smothering atmosphere.

I haven’t played Book of Memories, but I’ll admit that it’s hard to be optimistic when it feels like such a departure from the series I love. Silent Hill has always been about capturing solitude, and to properly do that, a multiplayer experience just doesn’t fit for me. It feels so unnatural for the series that it’s off-putting.

So, here’s what I propose. At this point, I think the series really needs to return to its roots to recapture its prominence. The best way to do that? How about a complete remake of one of its older titles? Can I offer up Silent Hill 2, the series’ best showing? Silent Hill 2 already has some of best use of sound in the series, pure silence with your footsteps crunching leaves effectively gets you on edge – imagine that on surround sound now.

And if you updated the controls to something more fluid that wouldn’t turn off the modern-gamer, you might just capture a new audience. Plus, that plot twist is so hard to top that more people need to experience that jaw-dropping moment. I think the series can really benefit from developers being forced to look at what made it such a cult hit in the first place. The HD remake just wasn’t enough, plus 360 users got the short end of the stick.

I don’t want to see one of my favorite series vanish; I also don’t want to be inclined to completely abandon it. The Silent Hill name is strong and, in my opinion, it has the power to resurrect the traditional survival horror genre. I only suggest going with a remake because I think it will open the floodgates for what worked really well with the series. Hopefully, it would spring forth a new Silent Hill title that remains in-line with the series’ original vision, but also innovate with new implementations to also make it feel new and exciting. I want to feel the sense of fear and paranoia about what’s around every corner again. These days, the scares just aren’t there.

silent hill suffers from the same problem that metroid has. to many different people have contributed to the series. every studio has interprited the series differently. now when they make a new game all of the rest of the series has to be at least looked at and considered. there is no need to remake the same game twice. thats a waist. the series needs to follow the zelda formula. zelda remakes the same thing over and over agin until people don't buy it anymore.(luckly people keep buying it). now that may sound stupid becuse i said "don't remake SH2" but what i'm saying is Make the game so familiar to the original series that, even though you may change the monsters(becuse of the protagonist)the core game experiance is identical to the original series. they just need to change the story of the protagonist, not the town. explaining the town is like tilting at windmills, and the reson the series has gon astray. everyone is trying to make the town weirder,and thus screwing up the feel of the game.

I don't know if Game Informer's review scores reflect upon the whole staff, but for someone who sounds you love Silent Hill, you guys have always underscored them. The highest rating you gave a silent hill was to Silent Hill 4, and it wasn't even mentioned in this article. You praise Silent Hill 2, yet gave it a 7. I love every single one, but it now seems like a guilty pleasure because of how much hatred the series has garnered. Maybe I am missing something, I will never proclaim I am right about an opinion I give or observe.

A huge part of the old games immense tension and suspense is definitely attributed to Akira Yamaoka's brilliant music and sound design. Sound in general is such a powerful yet tremendously underrated aspect of many (horror) games, yet the simple gameplay mechanic of having a radio emit static whenever a monster is nearby just shows how much can be achieved if it is given some dedicated thought. Also, any good horror experience is focused around atmosphere. The town of Silent Hill plays as much a part in this as the enemy design does, since the varyingly creepy and uncanny locales serve to scare just as much (if not more so) through their mere presence, than the actual monsters do. Think of the hospital, the prison, and the hotel in SH2, and think about how much they contribute to the overall atmosphere. The SH series just needs to return to the roots of what worked so well in the old games; simple but effective mechanics that are well-implemented, and which manage to get inside your head and make your skin crawl long AFTER the game has been turned off.

Didn't you hear? According to Tomm Hulett (producer on Silent Hill Origins, Shattered Memories, HD Collection, Downpour, and Book of Memories) Silent Hill fans are never happy.* If you have a problem with the game there's obviously something wrong with you and not the lackluster direction the series has taken. And a Silent Hill 2 remake? The way these guys handled that game in the HD Collection shows they don't hold that game with as high regard as you might hope. They didn't just re-do all the voices (often to the detriment of the game) they cropped things out, broke the atmosphere (see: busted fog), and more.

*I gleaned that sentiment of Hulett's from his blog where he often posts things about Silent Hill fans. Lately, he wrote about how only Silent Hill fans don't like spinoff games, citing Persona 4 Arena, amongst others, as games that were embraced by their fanbase.

The series has lost it's way since the development team was moved west. Silent Hill is a very important series to me and this hits close to home. I hope the series can reinvent itself in such a way as to make everyone happy.

Is it too much to ask that games 'journalists' learn to write in an adult manner with a real style? This stupid 'open letter' format has never been funny - All it does is illustrate that you can't properly format a real, informative article on a given subject. It's like a childish version of an opinion piece - you can state your point of view without appearing totally serious about your complaints, therefore not offending the advertisers.

I enjoyed Downpour, and Shattered Memories is genuinely awesome - that game deserves an HD remake, and some more hype pushing it. But I understand the series is pretty lost, as is Konami, when you think about it. I mean, where's their identity? Where's their Japanese staff? Everything coming out of Konami these days is done by other developers - Kojima Productions, Mercurysteam, Vatra... and they outsourced the last Contra games (Arc System Works and Wayforward) and Suikoden (Tri-Ace). Seriously, where is their internal development staff?

Any way, what I would like to see? Konami - since they're intent on sending everything to a third party developer - should go to Frictional (Amnesia, Penumbra) and ask them to reboot Silent Hill. THOSE GUYS know scary, and they deliver experiences that feels fresh to gamers. They also have the clout, thanks to Amnesia's success, to do something new with Silent Hill and have gamers not instantly dismiss it. Get them to work on the next Silent Hill.

Or, just start a new Horror IP. Capcom should do that too - with Resident Evil so far off the rails, it's time for Capcom to bust out a new Clock Tower or Haunting Ground.

So many great survival horror games out there today not named Silent Hill. You need to get past the name, and also it's not 1999 when there were only a handful of great talent in industry. Try somthing new, you might like it.

I'm still not able to get my head around saying "return to its roots" and them proposing Silent Hill 2. I was actually disappointed in Silent Hill 2 after playing Silent Hill. For one thing I hated all of the characters in the second game and really didn't feel any compassion at all for them when bad things happened since it seemed like just a bunch of bad people that died and went to hell because that's what they deserved. The story telling was worse, there was a smaller variety of enemy types and they weren't placed appropriately (zombie nurses make sense in a hospital but not so much just wandering around the street) and there was no where near the sense of mystery since the main character seemed chronically depressed. Silent Hill was the first game that I found genuinely creepy whereas Silent Hill 2 was just really foggy.